Anonymous wrote:OK OK we get it. DMV is far more obsessed with prestige than Bay Area.

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Anonymous wrote:I was talking to some old college friends who are now in the Bay Area and they’re on another level it seems. Many of them are pushing their kids pretty hard to get Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Columbia, etc. Just goes to show it’s all relative

Troll.

No one outside the DMV area considers Duke in this group. Bay area people don't.

I live in California now and you’re wrong, Duke and Columbia are both very desirable at top high schools here. HPSM are not the only schools people are looking at because they know odds are pretty low they’ll snag one.

Who the hell compares Duke with Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford? Let's just say many students write off southern schools - no matter how good they are. At best, they are niche schools, such as GeorgiaT, Rice for STEM, Duke for sports, Emory for I don't know what... These schools are a step or two below Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford...

Anonymous wrote:I knew before clicking on the thread that it was going to be the Bay Area. I do feel the DMV is intense about college but there are also a lot of very practical people here, even among the wealthy, who don't have any issue with state schools or think the rat race required to get into the tippy top schools just are not worth the effort.

The combination of tech money and extremely intense immigrant family culture is out of control in the Bay Area. You've got one group who is extremely entitled and truly believe they are smarter than everyone else and they simply demand admission to top schools for their kids, and then you have another group who isn't entitled but is willing to do almost anything to outcompete other people academically in order to gain access to the same schools. And these two groups are in a fight to the death.

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Anonymous wrote:Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Columbia
Penn
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell

Not according to US News or basic common sense, if that is a ranking

US news is worthless. This is a global perception.

So people outside the USA know more about our own universities than we do? Hope you are joking.

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I've always supposed it's a direct reflection of cost of living. Wealthy, educated parents see how expensive it is to raise a kid in a very high COL location, and get worried their kid won't be able to replicate the same success unless they have a particular brand name on their diploma.

I know this is so crazy, right! My degree is from the Univsersity of Oklahoma and I got here (wealthy UMC) without Harvard. I just don’t see how my kids need Harvard. It will never replace drive and ambition. Plus, coming from a place that isn’t even on people’s radar has been great - everyone thinks I’m “down to Earth”, “grounded”, “easy to get along with”, “unintimidating”. The stereotypes have helped me in a highly competitive world.

Did you like the University of Oklahoma?

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Anonymous wrote:Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Columbia
Penn
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell

This. +1000. All you have to say is my kid goes to an Ivy. And then after that only Stanford/MIT matter as Ivy plus. Then maybe next tier would be Chicago, Duke, Hopkins, Georgetown in terms of prestigious. Then come the rest and I am sorry state schools just don't cut it in terms of prestigious but will include Michigan and Cal.

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Anonymous wrote:It’s different but not that different. People here also grovel over their kids getting into HPSM, Duke, Penn, Columbia, etc.

You again? No one considered Columbia a peer of HYPSM or Duke.

LOL, no one on the west coast thinks highly at all of Duke; Columbia is in a different tier (not HYP).

UChicago for that matter is much better school than Duke, academically. There's no comparison.